Splatoon: 13th Splatfest next week in Europe/North America, cross-region play

22 April 201623 April 2016 Lite_Agent SplatFest, Splatoon

Update: added map rotation for the Japanese Splatfest.

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Splatfest are special 24 hour long events that take place regularly in Splatoon. During those, players have to answer a question (like “Do you prefer cats or dogs?”), before joining a team depending on their answer. At the end of each Splatfest, the team with the most points wins, based on popularity and number of battles won.

It’s been a while since the last Splatfest took place (on March 12-13th in Japan, and March 19-20th in Europe/North America), but we finally know when the next Splatfest will take place (at least, in Japan!). That being said, it’s not clear if this “delay” is due to a new schedule for Splatfests (instead of once every three weeks), or another reason.

Europe / North America

Today, Nintendo announced that the 13th Splatfest for Europe and North America would be radically different from the previous ones.

This one will be cross-region: same theme, same time, and players from the two regions will be able to play together (for the first time ever). What’s more, it will also last 30h, instead of the usual 24h (which is another first). Unfortunately, Japan will not join in the fun: even if their Splatfest takes place on the same day, their theme is different.

Nintendo explains that this is the first time players from Europe and North America will be able to play together during a Splatfest (which is something they can do outside Splatfests, and with Japanese players too). This implies that there will be other cross-region Splatfests in the future ( maybe with all three regions?).

The theme for this European and North American Splatfest is the following: “Who do you prefer? Spongebob or Patrick?”.

This cross-region Splatfest will take place on

Europe: April 23rd (3PM) to April 24th (9PM) (Voting begins on April 15th at 4PM)
UK: April 23rd (2PM) to April 24th (8PM) (Voting begins on April 15th at 3PM)
North America (EST): April 23rd (9AM) to April 24th (3PM) (Voting begins on April 15th at 10AM)
North America (PST): April 23rd (6AM) to April 24th (12PM) (Voting begins on April 15th at 7AM)
Japan: April 23rd (10PM) to April 25th (4AM) (Voting begins on April 15th at 11PM)

This Splatfest is for any Wii U owners with a European or North American copy of Splatoon.

Here’s some screenshots:

Japan

[Update] Nintendo has made a proper announcement.

In Japan, the 13th Splatfest will take place on April 23rd and 24th, and is sponsored by 7-Eleven (one of the biggest chains of convenience stores in Japan). This time, Japanese players have to chose between two flavours of 7-Eleven Onigiri (rice balls): Tuna mayonnaise or Matured Red Salmon.

But no need to launch Splatoon in order to vote and get your Splatfest t-shirt: voting hasn’t started yet. Indeed, the 13th Splatfest hasn’t even been announced yet anywhere (let alone Japan), even though the official website in Japan has already been updated for some reason. Since voting starts exactly one week before the actual Splatfest, we can assume we will get a proper announcement on Saturday (Friday evening for North America).

This Splatfest will take place on:

Japan: April 23rd (9AM)
Europe: April 23rd (2AM)
UK: April 23rd (1AM)
North America (EST): April 22nd (8PM)
North America (PT): April 22nd (5PM)

Here’s the map rotation:

Urchin Underpass
Port Mackerel (there was a mistake in the initial announcement, which is why the second picture below is for the wrong stage)
Kelp Dome